The Troublemaker

Mark Clifford’s new book is “a sympathetic and inspiring biography” (The Wall Street Journal) of billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, a leading Hong Kong democracy activist who became China’s most famous political prisoner. Lai escaped China at 12 and worked in Hong Kong factories, eventually owning one and becoming a global leader in “fast fashion.” After Tiananmen Square, he entered the media industry with Next and Apple Daily, publications critical of the Chinese Communist Party, eventually meeting with American officials about human rights and free speech; since 2020 he has been in solitary confinement in China. Clifford, a writer who is president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, speaks about Lai’s extraordinary story with Evan Osnos, a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Presented with the Leon Levy Center for Biography.

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